Introduction: History and progress of teh ASEAN economic community

The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is coming into effect in December 2015, although its full implementation will take a number of years. The AEC presents both challenges and opportunities for firms in the region. The main purpose of this publication is to serve as a resource to businesses, particularly in Myanmar and the other CLMV countries, in navigating the coming changes. It is therefore useful to begin by briefly placing in a historical context the emergence of the AEC as the next and key phase in the evolution of regional economic integration that began with ASEAN. It is also useful to see the AEC within the broader context of different stages of regional economic integration, in both theory and practice, and therefore potential lessons from other such efforts, such as the European Union (and the Eurozone) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This can point toward possible future directions for the AEC and its implications for participating economies, as regional integration evolves in coming years. Discussion of the evolution of ASEAN and AEC also provides a backdrop to the discussions in Section I of particular AEC policies and Section II of implications for business.

Related Subject(s): Commerce international et finance

Countries: Myanmar